altium-monkey-mcp
Read-only MCP server for Altium Designer projects: schematics, BOM, PCB and renders.
What it does and how it connects
altium-monkey-mcp is a read-only MCP server that lets AI assistants (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, VS Code and others) inspect Altium Designer projects, schematics, netlists, BOMs and PCBs, on Linux, macOS or Windows, without Altium Designer installed. It is a thin wrapper around altium-monkey, which parses the binary .SchDoc, .PcbDoc and .PrjPcb formats directly.
Its tools cover listing projects, project info with sheet hierarchy and compile diagnostics, component search and detail, net search and detail with PCB routing stats, BOM by design variant, board size, layer stackup, net classes, differential pairs and design rules, pick-and-place data, components near a part, schematic and PCB rendering to SVG and PNG, and full netlist export to JSON. A project argument accepts a .PrjPcb, .SchDoc, .PcbDoc or a directory, parsed designs are cached in memory and reloaded when any design file changes, and coordinates are reported in mm. Inkscape on PATH is optional, only for PNG output of the render tools.
The server never modifies design files. Its stated limitations are that accuracy depends on altium-monkey, Linux support there is less tested than Windows, arc length is not included in routing length, and polygons and planes are counted, not measured. It requires Python 3.12 to 3.14.
Alternatives
Compare side by side- eda-agent
Drives a live Altium Designer session with read and write tools through a persistent DelphiScript bridge, rather than parsing saved project files read-only.
- kicad-mcp-pro
A KiCad MCP server with gated write profiles and manufacturing export, rather than a read-only Altium file reader.
- kicad-mcp (blwfish)
Lets an agent drive a full KiCad workflow from description to fab files, rather than reading Altium projects without Altium installed.
- ato-eda-mcp
Compiles atopile text descriptions into routed KiCad boards through an MCP server, rather than inspecting existing Altium projects.
Recurring errors it addresses
Error Index entries this tool is built to reduce or work around.
- Symbols an agent creates in an Altium SchLib never mark the library as modified, so closing Altium throws them away without asking.Error Index
- tools that succeeded report failure (a moved part reports failure on decimal-comma locales; a net class that gained nets reports nets_added: 0), so an agent may retry a completed action or tell the user it failed.Error Index
- with a schematic or library focused, every PCB tool quietly runs on the first .PcbDoc (often a panel drawing with no parts), returning empty/wrong data, and misreports "no designators given" when designators were given but not found.Error Index
- The Altium MCP sandbox script failed between PreProcess and PostProcess, breaking Altium undo history until restart, and the agent could not read error dialogs drawn as non-windowed labels.Error Index
- The Altium MCP's checkpoints only cover saved disk bytes, not unsaved editor buffers, and there is no transactional rollback. Native acceptance stopped because two Altium instances were open; the PR is an honest boundary list of where agent writes into ECAD are still unsafe.Error Index
Sources
Not verified
- Pricing: none stated on the repo.
- Real user voices: no real linked post read for this page; the repo has no public issues.
- No GitHub releases exist, so latest release fields are null.
Last verified November 6, 2026. Listings are informational. The evidence score measures public, verifiable evidence and is not an endorsement or a compatibility claim.